Search form

What Women Want in Men

What do women look for in a man? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, isn't so straightforward. Generally speaking, men place more importance on beauty, while women value social status and access to financial resources. Yet things become more complicated depending on the context. Research has identified two factors that women take into account when assessing a potential sexual partner. First, is the relationship of a short-term or a long-term nature? And second, is she likely to become pregnant?

According to Parental Investment Theory, reproduction is a much more costly proposition for females than it is for males. While women invest nine months in a pregnancy, a man's initial contribution to the joys of parenthood boils down to just a few minutes. Thus, women need to be particularly selective when it comes to choosing a mate. Aside from a man’s resources, his genetic gifts are decisive in the selection process. Why? The thinking goes that in our ancestors' harsher environment a hardy constitution went a long way in advancing evolution's ultimate aims: survival and reproduction.

Numerous studies have found that women's mate preferences shift according to their menstrual cycle. During peak levels of fertility, they prefer more masculine and socially dominant men. In the literature these men are known as “cads.” Indeed, they tend to be sexy, with their narrow eyes and strong jaws — but they also tend to be flashy and exploitative of others. Even worse, these masculine men often embody the Dark Triad, a personality constellation that encompasses Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism. Typically, these men offer only short-term prospects.

By contrast, during less fertile phases women are drawn to more feminine and compassionate men. These men are referred to as “dads.” They tend to be more reliable, warm, and faithful than their caddish counterparts. They also offer greater prospects for a long-term relationship.

Building on this research foundation, psychologists Debra Zeifman and Jennifer Ma wanted to further investigate the nature of women's mating preferences under a thoroughly modern condition: artificial insemination. Would women who are seeking sperm donors have a different set of criteria than those seeking a long-term partner? The beauty of this study is that selecting an anonymous donor is in essence the “ultimate test” of what women believe to be good genes for her future child, since the purpose is strictly for procreation. The onus of meeting and attracting a genetically gifted suitor to have his baby is wholly removed – a woman can just pick him out of a binder.

In this experiment, participants were first asked to construct an “ideal man,” indicating their preferences for height, body type, hair color, skin color, overall attractiveness, age, education, income, race, religion, and political viewpoint. The classifications for body type were in keeping with those used by online dating sites (i.e., slender, athletic and toned, about average, a few extra pounds, heavyset, and other). The choices for physical appeal were: below average, average, above average, and well above average.

Second, the participants were asked to fill out a 20-item questionnaire about traits women might find attractive when selecting a mate. It drew on four domains, with five traits per category: The first category was “good gene indicators,” which included the traits of masculine, good looking, physically fit, sex appeal, and intelligent. The second category was “good resource indicators,” which included the traits of good earning capacity, college graduate, ambition and industriousness, social status, and older than you. The third category was “good parenting indicators,” which included the desire for home and children, likes children, cares about raising children well, emotionally stable and mature, and kind and understanding. The fourth category was “good partnering indicators,” which included the descriptors of being a loving partner, devoted to you, loyal, romantic, and compromises easily. As a next step, the participants rated and ranked the importance of these characteristics.

The researchers then analyzed the data. What did they find? The women seeking sperm donors cared about good genes more and partner potential less than women seeking life partners. In other words, when strictly contemplating a man's genetic contributions to their future child, women tended to care more about man's physical attractiveness than his character.

What can we learn from this study? The authors argue that when it comes to women's preferences, it's indeed complicated and depends on the situation.

More about the Blogger: Vinita Mehta, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist in Washington, DC, and an expert on relationships, managing anxiety and stress, and building health and resilience. Dr. Mehta provides speaking engagements for your organization and psychotherapy for adults. She has successfully worked with individuals struggling with depression, anxiety, and life transitions, with a growing specialization in recovery from trauma and abuse.

Dr. Mehta is also the author of the forthcoming book Paleo Love: How Our Stone Age Bodies Complicate Modern Relationships.

A narcissistic child is better than a dead one. By focusing exclusively on a man's physical fitness as a sign of his genetic health, in the context that the man in question will not stick around to take care of the child, a woman enhances the survivability of her child, even if it should grow up to be a disgusting bastard.

Lets see. Current day sex symbols include George clooney, brad Pitt and Johnny depp. All attractive wealthy men. But none of them are super masculine. All are intelligent, smooth and cool. Not sure how masculine. Square jaw and narrow eyes? That is a stretch. I'd say its more like fame, not power.

The fact that someone is famous implies success. Success implies wealth, and a wealthy man will very possibly mean a good father simply because he can contribute with food and resources. That, I believe, is why men dream of becoming accomplished and seek to display their achievements (medals, cups, a buck horn) as decoration.

This information is rather old hat. It's been pretty established that women want a buff, bad boy, douche stud for their kids looks and "health" and a wealthy, nice, idiot to raise that kid. You don't have to be a genius to see this in everyday life.

In my opinion most decision we make is social/emotional related. As man I can tell that the strongest correlation to man be liked by woman is his ability to have quality interaction with her. We all love people that we see as good an trusty. Also, those people who can make us feel loved and appreciated make as fall in love. Stud, cads, dads I don't believe that, my real life experience tells me different story.

We are all emotional damaged in our lives and many relationship is influence by human need to make some emotional resolution and that often leads people to stay in abusive relationships. From evolutionary perspective I can see one strong fact that we are creatures governed by our social and emotional needs because it binds us as group.

For me it is just common sense that woman want to choose best mate as she can. For example if I need to walk 100 miles I will be careful what kind of shoe I pick. It is common sense no need to have any relationship with evolution.

I got feeling that our emotional needs are greatly underestimated in mating game.

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing Vinita! I must say that I did somewhat expect that conclusion though, that women put a higher premium on physical attractiveness than character. This would be expected since women are generally more selfless and charitable towards others. What I find interesting though is that being into "looks" is actually not superficial as most people see it but a way to attempt to secure good genes for their children. The only thing is that character is heavily influenced by genes too, no?

Character and intelligence is of great importance for survival. In my life I saw situation where will power is the one that make difference between life and death. Also it is not clear what kind of body is best for survival. That is why we still have so much different body shapes: tall, short, thin, robust ... Diversity is good. This can be observe among females. Man can be seen completely different from woman to woman, from culture to culture; same is for women. I think most woman just seek the man who shows most competence for given lifestyle and environment he will be judged much more based on deeds not appearance. Many research shows that importance of physical just drastically fall when social interaction start see Dan Ariely as reference.

What is the probability that you'll survive with a perfectly fit body, but with poor character? Not that good, but definitely there.
Now, what is the probability that you will survive with a strong character but a shit body? Even lower, I'd assume. A strong character is useless if you don't have a functioning body. You may not even be born alive!

99.9% percent people have enough functional body so I don't know about what kind of shit body you think. I will tell you as former athlete that your body is shaped with you character. You can improve performance or completely destroy you body it is entire about your character. There are people that against all medical odds able to walk run even win olympic games. I also lived in war zone for some period of time and I know something about survival. It is about will power to endure push your self further; your body will adopt. In war be smart greatly increase your odd to survive.

Even man with fit body dies from disease and hearth failures just this year several athletes dies from hearth failures in my country.
Who will die or survive is very hard to tell just from bodies.

Just look at Steven Hawking he suppose to be dead after two years disease is diagnosed or Milton Erickson same story. Great minds poor bodies and yet there were more productive then most of people.

"You can improve performance or completely destroy you body it is entire about your character." In terms of the body's long term fitness, yes, but I was talking in a more shorter turn, like during pregnancy and the first years of childhood, although it is important later in life too, it is not as significant. Human infants are the most helpless infants of all, and even a slightly more physically fit body can be vital to their survival in harsher and more primitive conditions.

99.9% of people have sufficiently functioning bodies you say? Even so, how do you suppose this rate came about and sustained in the first place? And why would it disappear?

I agree that natural pressure on physical fitness exist, no doubt but I think that is just part of story. Let me ask you question, what is more important for infant: care of parents (which is character feature) or physical fitness of the baby? Which babe has more chance of survive: one that is cared or one perfect baby left alone?

My replay is not about evolution but about physical attractiveness and choosing mate. I believe that far great importance has competence and character then appearance. What use of me if I am pretty boy but I kill or neglect my entire family. Also who is attractive very depends who you ask. Some girls think I am handsome some not but all of them have almost same idea about my character and competence.

I also believe that physical attractiveness doesn't have correlation with fitness. If it is we all will look like George Clooney. People comes with so many different shapes looks and most of them have equal chance to survival that is reason why there are still here.

To answer your question: somewhere in between. More towards the fit-body end before, more towards the parental-care now. But that is all granted that the father actually sticks around. When women are not looking for long-term partners, they focus more on looks.

Well, who says we all(most of us) don't look like stone-age George Clooney, but some lucky few are born on the next step on the handsomeness-ladder? Either way, yes, you're right; children with both parents present to take care of them have a higher chance of survival. And attractiveness is perhaps not direct evidence of physical fitness, but it is evidence for at least mostly healthy genes, which, in turn, implies a fit body. But most of us won't be able to get together with the most attractive people we've ever seen; take what you can get (but chose the best when possible) is the best reproductive strategy.

Maybe you right maybe we are all handsome devils :) but in one I ma sure I am the child of survivors. But at this point I don't see any evidence that attractiveness is not cultural bias and it is related to healthy genes. Can you tell from attractiveness about someone health? Beautiful people dies as much as average looking people. Justin Bieber is consider attractive to many teenage girls, can you tell could he survive in wilderness or that he is healthier than your friend that sits next to you?
Many research shows that to engage in long or short term relationship is strongly correlated with social-emotional interactions - see Dan Arialy lectures for more info. If woman look only on pictures maybe it is true but we don't date pictures we date humans.

For me that is stretched theory that doesn't have real evidence for real life. I am man who did have benefit from good look but I never engage any woman short or long term without good social interaction. If I act as jerk I will lose her. Be good looking (at least to some woman) only means that maybe girls will approach me more often but that's it. Also if I see beautiful girl and can not make connections with her I will walk way simple is that.
At the end I will just tell I see all people beautiful, on very rare occasions someone has health problems that makes their appearance challenging.

Well, I'm not sure if this is true, but it seems to be the case that women might see a man more attractive if she knows that a lot of other women like him. The philosophy behind it is that if he is very popular among women, it is probably because he has some nice characteristics as well good looks. Now, this attractiveness may increase exponentially; more women find him attractive, which makes even more women find him attractive, which makes him even more popular, and so on. But this may also be closely linked with fame, fame implies success, success implies wealth, and wealth is a good thing for a man to have. At least according to women.

Now, I do believe what you're saying in your second paragraph is what I mentioned in my last comment; take what you can (but choose the best when possible).

1) The attractiveness I am talking about is the instinctive interest you feel towards someone's physical appearance

2) Attractiveness is an innate quality that is influenced by outside perceptions and other innate qualities the person may have. In addition, I believe "attractiveness" is a quality that evolves. What is attractive today might not be attractive 500 years from now. It depends on evolution.

3) There is scientific evidence behind "attractiveness" being an indicator of health and good genes. For example, symmetrical features, which are generally perceived as attractive, are indicative of good health.

4) There are looks that people objectively find more attractive than others, regardless of the culture you are in.

If someone will able to show me experiment that will prove that some looking on photo of male model and average looking person will tell who is healthier and who has better genes (what ever that means) then I will buy it. Until that this is maybe just another myth we like to believe. I believe in attractiveness but it is far more complex than good genes and survival.

I agree with you that this is way more complex. I do think though that if we used your above example and modified it so that both the model and average looking person were the same on every other trait, I would presume the model to be healthier due to being more objectively attractive.

Let me give two examples from my life.
I live in EU and I have grandmother, 92 years old, survive two wars, lost two husbands, most of her life didn't have TV and never been in school. So you can imagine there is big culture gap between me and her and even more between people in US and her. She is kind and bright woman by all means but after she moved to our place I discovered that she see black people as scary and unattractive not because she is racist but because it is too novel and too strange for her. She never met black people in person, just saw them on TV. There is no black man on this planet that she can find attractive. I apologize to black people I don't mean to offend anyone.

Another example. I know one girl who is average looking woman, dark blonde, in our culture maybe little overweight, round shaped. Once she was at beach with her grandmother suddenly, arabian sheik approached and offer small fortune to get her as wife. I was shocked and really surprise. Later I find that he was not some excentric rich man but in general arabian men prise woman who is shaped like her. I have persian friend who confirmed that.

So what can be drawn as conclusion here? I can think only one, attractiveness is belief system just like any other we have as human being. It so different and diverse that can blow your mind.
For me attractiveness is almost or completely driven by culture.
I see plain woman somebody else see beauty queen, you see stud other can see him as scary and weird. Also I don't have to mention how concept of beauty is changing over time.

I don't see any objectiveness here. Our genes change very slowly over time so I don't see any objective reason to rapid change (in space and time) perception of beauty as indicator of good genes (in terms of health). But I will put one interest note. Hunt for genes maybe, can be justify because we want our children to be as attractive as possible to other people to increase their chance to succeed in society but it has more with culture and less with health.
What is good gene and what is not can not be recognize by people only nature can tell it. It will put it on test and good one survive bad one dies. We can guess but nature is final judge.

I will repeat, I don't speak about people who are deformed or have visible illness I am speaking about average people and one that we see as attractive

And remember next time you see a woman be careful what you think maybe she is beauty queen in some other part of world. I learned my lesson.

YOU MUST NOT HAVE EVER RAISED CHILDREN. YOU SEE CHARACTER TRAITS DEVELOP VERY EARLY IN CHILDHOOD, AND AS A PARENT, YOU NEED TO TACKLE THESE ISSUES HEAD ON. IF A CHILD DISPLAYS SELFISH, OR VIOLENT TENDENCIES, YOU HAVE TO ACT. I HAVE SEEN PRESCHOOL KIDS ATTACK EACH OTHER WITH VIOLENCE, SIMILAR TO WHAT I SAW IN MY PROFESSION, WHICH WAS CORRECTIONS. INMATES, GROWN MEN, BEHAVING LIKE VIOLENT CHILDREN. WOMEN STILL PREFER MEN WITH MONEY, PLAIN AND SIMPLE. ANYBODY WHO TELLS YOU OTHERWISE IS FULL OF BULL.

women seem to be headcases these days and were waiting for all of you to start blaming your poor behavior on your cycles as well since alot of you are so into making excuses to justify poor behavior.....zzzzzzz! Sounds like women are into creating some kind of designer babies or something--pretty sick!

Sorry,but women are brainwashed from birth by hollywood to find certain guys attractive and desireable (cue tall dark and handsome propaganda)and others not.It IS cultural! Funny how women will complain that men judge them and all the while women engage in that judgemental behavior quite often and on a more regular basis then men do.On looks,status,height and about everything else you can imagine.Yet it is women who always get the hour long pity parties on Oprah about how YOU are judged and overanalyzed by men and society.Hmm anyone smell a rat ?? Can you say fraud
? double standard? hypocrisy?????

Well, the argument goes that women find men from a different race than themselves attractive simply because they have a quite different immune system, hence it can improve the immune system of her offspring.

I know women who see other race to strange to be attractive to them. I know people from different culture and diversity of attractiveness is so great that culture influence is only explanation that can explain it. Behind every look is story that we believe. Different culture different story. If you look at someone just ask yourself what you believe who is that man/woman? You will start be aware of this stories.